What's love got to do with a roach?

What a way to start the day! The morning routine was anything but predictable, what with me grabbing the toilet roll only to realize that I held in my hands a roach that writhed and wriggled for its dear life! I dropped that despicable thing and it fell on my lap!! 

Screaming at the top of my lungs, I ran out of the toilet and the hubby said calmly (as though this was an everyday occurrence), "I should have filmed it down." 

I was expecting nice-sounding, loving, sympathetic words to precede a heroic act. After 14 years, I'm still trying to get used to the fact that his love language is acts of service and not words.

But in a life and death situation such as this (life for me and death for the roach obviously), actions are most definitely valued over words.

In hindsight, the whole episode was rather hilarious. Imagine a half-crazed woman dashing out of the loo to be faced with a very willing audience of two. The kids respond to screaming of the blood-curdling type very much faster than the yelling of the high strung mum sort.

Bear in mind that I was answering nature's call when it all happened. My reflex action was to dash out and not pull up.

No nurturing mum image here. It looked like I was caught in the act with my pants down (literally). That was the sight that greeted the kids. Throughout this whole saga, the hubby was sitting in bed, looking at his phone. 

And he said those words.

He then proceeded to confront the enemy and deftly defeated it.

Who knew that a random incident such as this could stir up feelings of love very unexpectedly. I started to recall the many acts of love he had shown consistently over the years. It was easy to take for granted the seemingly mundane acts which often pale in drama to the romantic allure of flowers, gifts, fine dining and heart-melting declarations of love.

As I type, the hubby is helping me pack my laptop and stuff so that the bag can be ready for work tomorrow. He bathes the kids more often than I do, reads to them before bedtime (covers my reading duties when I'm feeling lazy), babysits them without complaint when I hang out with my friends. And not forgetting exterminating pests and bugs of all kinds and training our son to do likewise. (E now picks up dead baby lizards with a tissue and tries to gross his sister out with it.)

The list of mundane acts goes on. 

Gosh, this is beginning to make me sound like a sloth. I work hard. I do. Really. Real hard.

I am guilty of placing a lesser value on those little acts of love. Today, I remember and I am thankful. I now know to look beyond the words (or the lack of) to find one who will rise to the occasion, whatever the need.

Not ending this with "I love yous" and other mushy gushy WORDS. I'll go make him a cup of hot drink instead.

I couldn't resist including this photo :) My man of action!